1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a heat-transfer mechanism and an information device, more particularly, to a heat-transfer mechanism which transfers heat of a heat-generating component mounted on a board to a housing and an information device including the heat-transfer mechanism.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a conventional information device, for example, a controller which is incorporated into a device such as a vending machine, as a method of cooling an electric component mounted on a board, a cooling method is often used such as a forced air cooling system which forcibly supplies cooled air to an electronic component by using a cooling fan, for example and a natural cooling method which discharges heat of an electronic component housed in a housing outside the housing via an opening section (vent hole) provided in the housing.
It is necessary, however, to provide a cooling fan in a housing in the forced air cooling method. For this reason, the size of the information device is increased, and it becomes difficult to ensure the silence of the device by the noise when driving the cooling fan. On the other hand, in the natural cooling method, if the information device is placed in a position where an environment is not managed such as outside, air current in the installation environment goes against the upward current from the inside of the housing, which may deteriorate the quality of the information device when the heat is not effectively discharged and a foreign substance enters from the vent hole.
Consequently, a technique, which provides a heat-transfer plate between a heat-generating component and a housing for transferring the heat of the heat-generating component to the housing when the heat-generating component is housed in the sealed housing without using a vent hole, is proposed as described in JP2007-188998A and JP2008-288233A, for example.
Meanwhile, a demand for downsizing and thinning an information device has been recently increased, so that a need for effectively releasing heat of a heat-generating component without increasing a thickness of a housing is increased.